A Heart Unfortified
by anielle
Summary: Slightly AU, post-Reichenbach, if Sherlock had jumped earlier and Moriarty was still alive. Just an idea of how their lives could have gone. Lots of angstyness, but it actually does have a plot if you wait for it. Not slash.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: My first fanfic in a long while, guys. This show (and fandom) is just so good that I had to contribute!_

_Post-Reichenbach, so definitely spoilers up through 2x03. Slightly AU, since events on the roof go just a little bit differently. Sorry it starts off as mostly just angst, actual plot does sort of happen later on. I think it's a bit of a twist I haven't read yet, give it a try and tell me what you think!_

_Disclaimer – I of course do not own anything Sherlock-related (except for my books and DVDs!). All credit where credit is due._

There wasn't really anywhere he felt he could go. Not the hospital, like Lestrade had suggested. He didn't think there was much they could do for him, there. Not to the Yard, where he would probably have to be locked up for going on the run earlier, but mostly because he didn't know that he'd be able to stomach the sight of those people. Certainly not to Baker Street, with Mrs. Hudson sure to be hovering and sighing and sympathizing. Not to the flat. Not with the crying.

He hadn't cried. Maybe he couldn't. It didn't feel like he would, didn't feel like he could do anything.

His hands were still wrapped around his mug, cupped close like he was warming his fingers, but the coffee had grown tepid. The waitress hadn't come back since she had first plopped the drink down on the sticky plastic table. He hadn't really noticed.

He hadn't noticed anything, not for hours. Not a single thought passing through his mind as he clutched that cup.

Though really, he reflected minutes later, realizing his vacancy probably counted as a thought.

And that one, too.

His hand was sore. He detached white knuckled fingers from the mug and shook his hand out slowly.

Words from the news broadcast playing on the telly in the corner of the diner drifted over to him.

'Lies,' 'detective,' 'suicide,' echoed through his mind, and then Moriarty's face was on the screen, twisted into a caricature of rueful contrition.

"Awful business," he muttered. "Terrible to see what a corrupted mind is capable of."

The television anchor thanked Richard Brook for his input, and then there was footage from outside St. Bart's, people crowding around a dark heap on the pavement…

He spilled the lukewarm coffee in his haste to leave.

The night air was bracing. Cold sunk deep into his bones as he roamed the streets. Just when the sky was about to lighten, a flinty rain began to fall, seeping under the collar of his jacket and turning the pavement glossy.

Once half of London has scurried past him, elbowing him with umbrellas raised high, and the other half had roared by in the splash of a cab, his numb feet had finally carried him back to Baker Street.

After some hesitation, he entered, heading straight for the stairs.

Mrs. Hudson was out in a flash with 'oh, did he have any idea how worried she'd been' and 'he hadn't been out like that all night had he' and all the questions he didn't want to answer. It was a good thing she was there, however, because now that he'd reached the steps, he couldn't lift his leg to walk up them, couldn't even stand.

She couldn't help when John collapsed, but at least she was there.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thanks so much for everyone who added this to your alerts and favorites and especially those who reviewed! It's been a very long time since I've published anything I've written, so your feedback means a lot. I should maybe be worried at how pleased I am at making you all sad, but I've come to accept it._

_I'm trying to stay a few chapters ahead so that I can update regularly, but we'll see. I'll do my best for you all!_

"Awful business," Jim Moriarty shook his head for the news cameras. "It's terrible to see what a corrupted mind is capable of."

Kitty gave him a supportive squeeze. They certainly were putting on a good show, her wrapped around him and his arm draped across her shoulders in a one-armed hug. Though he supposed she wasn't acting.

"So you've been following this story closely then?" shouted out a reporter from the sea of microphones.

"A man hires you to act as a criminal mastermind, and you don't think you'd keep up on the news that he'd fled police custody and jumped off the roof of a hospital?" He smiled, and a chuckle ran through the crowd.

Strange, the consulting criminal thought, that people can laugh at the mention of a man committing suicide, but call Sherlock Holmes a sociopath.

He wished he could share in the laughter, though. In their relief that the troublesome detective with the beautiful face and the cutting tongue had been stripped of whatever it was that made him special and then exited their lives, everything explained and tied up in a neat bow.

But Sherlock Holmes had turned the tables on him. He'd planned to end it, his long and highly successful run, secure in the knowledge that he'd left Sherlock a problem that the genius could never solve.

Only one way out. Only one ending. A fall, a death, a disgrace.

It hadn't happened the way it was meant to.

"What's next for Richard Brook?" The question rose above the murmurings of the news crowd surrounding the stoop of the flat he and Kitty shared.

"Well, certainly nothing like this." He grinned broadly as the flashes of cameras went off in a flurry of light. "No more strapping people to false bombs, definitely not."

At this, the media did seem to subdue. So odd how their funny little minds worked, picking and choosing whom to empathize with, whom to deny sympathy.

None for the man who had been forced to leap to his demise. Who had literally stood looking into death and laughed.

He'd laughed.

"Off you pop," Jim had said, deliciously trivializing it, even when the moment meant so much to him, too. His triumph. His proof that no one could get to him, not even Sherlock Holmes. The man had begged for time, as if he could prepare himself, as if he could scrape together some modicum of dignity.

Jim had seen enough men die to know that there was no dignity in it. But as he'd allowed the detective the chance to make that last discovery for himself, Sherlock Holmes had laughed.

He'd laughed, even as Jim spun around and demanded to know why, and he'd plunged off the roof of St. Bart's before Jim could finish asking what he'd missed.

That laughter had been unexpected. He hadn't factored that reaction into his calculations, and now he could never be sure that he'd come up with the perfect solution. That laughter meant he was wrong.

Or that Sherlock wanted him to believe he was wrong. Maybe he'd just used it as a way to lash out, to torture Jim from beyond the grave, forever. No, but Sherlock Holmes was on the side of the angels, ordinary, he would never think to pull off something so devious.

So what had he missed?

"How do you think his flatmate, John Watson, must be reacting to all of this?"

And there was the answer.

His attention snapped back to the reporters huddled around him; his mouth curved to one side in an expression of the deepest regret.

"I'm so sorry for the role I played in all this, especially deceiving that poor, confused man. I can't imagine what he's going through right now, with everything he's learned in the just the past few hours."

If anyone would know what Sherlock had planned, if anyone would know what Sherlock would think in his last moments, if anyone would know what made Sherlock Holmes laugh, it was John Watson.

Jim gave Kitty's fingers a quick squeeze, then placed his hand over his heart.

"If I can do anything to help that man, I swear I will do all I can. John Watson will be my new project."

The flashbulbs exploded, every camera capturing his smiling promise.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Thank you all for reading, and the story alerts, reviews, everything! Every time someone reads, you make this fangirl ridiculously happy._

It was like he was nine and bedridden with pneumonia again. Just like that, actually, except much more was wrong with him this time, and he was much, much older, now.

Mrs. Hudson made a better caretaker than Harry ever had, bringing him hot tea and soup every few hours. "Don't worry about a thing, dear," she would tut, and remind him that Mike Stamford, such a nice fellow, had told him specifically to stay in bed.

Not that he'd be able to get up if he wanted to. His leg had started up again the minute he had returned to the flat, worse than before. The throbbing ache pounded away as he lay still, making it clear he would not be able to walk without his cane for a while.

The drugs Mike had prescribed him couldn't touch that pain, they were just to treat the sickness and the concussion that bicyclist had left him. Most medicines couldn't cure ailments of the mind.

Two pills sat next to the bowl of chicken noodle Mrs. Hudson had brought up hours before. John wasn't sure he wanted to take them. Now that the worst of the fever had passed, the hellish hallucinations of too red blood creeping through the cracks in the sidewalk, of burning hands ripping him away from the chalky one he wanted so desperately to hold on to, he didn't want to suffocate under the drugs' heavy haze.

Besides, he could hear someone coming in the front door downstairs. Halfheartedly, John attempted to figure out who it might be, trying to piece together a person from the soft responses replying to Mrs. Hudson's greetings and the weight of the footsteps on the stairs. But he wasn't the man at 221B who had a mind for deduction, so he gave up and waited.

He certainly hadn't expected to see Mycroft Holmes enter the bedroom. His surprise must have shown, because Mrs. Hudson brightened at his affect and backed out of the room, saying, "I'll just leave you two alone, shall I."

John didn't want to notice the shadows smudging beneath Mycroft's eyes, so he looked away.

"John." Mycroft stepped forward. "I was sorry to hear that you had taken ill. You're feeling better now, I presume."

"The fever's broken, if that's what you mean."

"Indeed."

The silence couldn't have gone on for the hours that it hung suspended between them, John knew. He uncomfortably tried to find some comment or joke about London's weather to fill in the hole, but nothing fit.

"Your sickness came at a rather," Mycroft paused. "Unfortunate time."

"Yes, well, I'm sorry," John stammered, caught off guard as the usually elusory man came straight to the point.

"We've had to bury Sherlock."

John's breath hitched painfully, his lungs still weak from infection. His mind flew. Why on earth would you do that to – oh yes, that was why – the bloody trenches flowing in the pavement – but what did that have to do with – oh yes, that was right – he could see that black figure against the sky, standing tall one moment, but the next –

"Already?" was all he said.

"It seemed best." Mycroft's voice was bare without the layers of sarcasm and superiority that typically coated his words. "With all the press so excited. Not a funeral, really. I wasn't even there."

It was maybe intended to make John feel better for not being there himself, but he could only see a lonely coffin being lowered into a grave. Dirt being shoveled onto his friend's blood streaked face, flecking his staring blue eyes. Alone.

He pressed his own eyes firmly closed.

"There's just one more thing. My brother's phone. It was found in St. Bart's, afterwards. Miss Hooper seems to think you should have it. She said he would have wanted you to keep it."

Mycroft extended the mobile, his features warring between wry amusement and a tired, bitter sadness under his normally schooled countenance. "She's probably right."

Wordlessly, John accepted the phone. The weight of the thing was different than his own, but familiar.

"Goodbye, John."

John meant to say something, a goodbye or a thank you, sympathize with comforting, meaningless phrases, but the elder Holmes was gone.

His breaths were too fast and too shallow, but each quick shiver sent a stabbing pain through his weak chest. Lightheaded, he was shuddering, shaking uncontrollably.

It wasn't until he lowered his head into trembling hands that he realized his face was finally wet.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Thank you all, as always, for your reviews and story alerts. It gives me thrills. This is a long one here, sorry!_

"John."

There was a pause, and then, "I, I can't come down, so we'll just have to do it like this. My apology. It's all true. Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty."

A tight breath. "I'm a fake."

The next bits were too fast, tumbling out as though he didn't like the taste of them and was chasing them off his tongue. "I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything I could to impress you. It's a trick. Just a magic trick.

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly, in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you, that I created Moriarty, for my own purposes.

"Please, will you do this for me?" The 'please' didn't sound right in that voice, so vulnerable and raw. John tried to tell himself that it was just part of a ruse, a character the detective could so easily slip on for a moment. He knew it wasn't.

"This phone call, it's, um…It's my note." Then his voice took on a hard edge, sounding more like the man John knew. "It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."

No other words were said on the recording, but it didn't click off immediately. John couldn't stop himself from studying those nine seconds of silence, straining his ears, searching for a hidden clue in the stillness.

He didn't need the recording anymore to play it all back. It was seared in his memory, on a loop in his mind, so he could listen while he was brushing his teeth, or waiting for his tea to steep.

Each time, he ached to interrupt the monologue. To tell him, "Alright now, stop this," to ask, "Why are you saying this?" But the sentences kept on, a tinny soliloquy streaming from small speakers.

He was obscenely grateful to Mycroft for giving the mobile to him. The man couldn't have known that he was granting him more time, new words to replace the horrible last exchange they'd shared in St. Bart's. Although he felt dirty thinking it, he much preferred the pain on the message to dwelling on how loudly his voice had echoed when he'd called his friend a machine.

A much pleasanter obsession. It made him queasy to think on it.

On the tube that morning, John tried to puzzle out why the thing he refused to call a note spent so much time telling him things he refused to believe.

If he'd been one of his own patients, he wouldn't have been allowed out of his flat; he hadn't fully recovered, but he couldn't stay inside anymore. His intent had been to walk to his appointment, to glean distractions from London's streets. After the staircase down left him winded and just one block had sent him to the edges of the sidewalk, clinging to the walls of buildings to relieve the weight from his bad leg, it was clear: walking was no longer an option.

It was no wonder that his thoughts had returned to the phone recording once he was sitting in the cramped Underground car. It was to be expected, really, that he'd imagine he caught sight of a familiar head of dark curls.

His eyes watered, and he realized he must have been staring, unblinking, for rather a long time.

John cleared his throat, a bad idea that sent him into a ghastly coughing fit that had heads turning. He couldn't shake the feeling that people were watching him, however, long after he had gotten his breath back.

When he reflected on that, it too made sense. The tellys and tabloids had been blasting the story of 'The Fake Genius' Fall' and he was sure to have been mentioned in at least a few pieces.

What made less sense, of course, was that message. But however confusing its intents might be, it was his. His own bit of the detective that no one else could touch.

It was silly to be sitting across from his therapist, holding secretly on to the subject that most consumed his thoughts, but he didn't want to share those words, that voice, that extra time, with anyone else. And he couldn't share the fact that his friend's final conversation had been with a phone's voice recorder.

Imagining how things could have gone differently if only he'd called John for real instead of leaving a note on his own mobile. If only John had gotten back to the hospital quicker, reached the roof in time. If he had never left in the first place.

He could hear Molly's voice behind him as she climbed out of the cab they'd shared in their race to help Mrs. Hudson. Her horrified half-whisper, "John, up there." Heard his own shout ripped from his body. The earth shattering crack of bones and flesh meeting stone. Screams. The lifeless air of an empty home.

"Why today?" Dr. George's voice cut through his reverie. It was a stupid question. The looks he'd gotten on the tube were proof enough of that.

"Do you want to hear me say it?"

"18 months since our last appointment."

That didn't change anything, didn't mean anything; John knew she couldn't be unaware. "Do you read the papers?"

"Sometimes," she said.

"And you watch telly." If she wanted him so tell her, he could, but of course everybody already knew. "You know why I'm here. I'm here because – "

He couldn't.

His breath caught painfully. He wondered if the feeling would ever stop. His mind skittered away from the idea of things stopping.

"What happened, John?" Dr. George leaned forward.

And his thoughts were yanked right back. Slamming up against the sight of his friend blurring past windows in a moment that constantly accelerated and never ended. Crashing through the crowding people who pinned him down, pulled him away. Smashing into rainwater eyes swirled with red, eyes that had spent their last waking second alone on a rooftop and their last earthly minute alone in a graveyard.

It wasn't her fault she didn't know. Nobody could.

Her face was expectant. For now, he'd have to stick with what everybody already knew.

"Sher –" His chest and throat constricted. Had he really not spoken the name in that long? It felt different than he remembered.

"You need to get it out."

He nodded quickly. Took the plunge. "My best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead."

It hurt to say, hurt to think. He closed his eyes to brace against the pain, turned away from the echo his voice had made. It felt impossible that a person could hurt so much and still be alive.

"Oh, John." Her soothing voice brimmed over with pity. "He didn't have _friends_."

His head jerked back as though he'd been slapped. He couldn't find the air to respond.

He wanted to tell her that she couldn't be more wrong, that of course Sherlock had friends. He'd had John. Still had him. But the last thing he'd ever said to Sherlock, "Friends protect people," rang in his ears. Maybe if Sherlock had had a good enough friend, he would still be here.

A twisting heat began to swell up in his leg. Maybe Dr. George wasn't wrong. He tried to blink back the burning behind his eyes.

"He told you so himself, didn't he," the therapist continued. "He told you he was a fake, that he'd been tricking you. Tricking everyone."

"He didn't mean – "

Dr. George cut off his protest. "I think you need to come to terms with the truth about Sherlock Holmes."

"How did you know?" His voice lashed out. It was steady for the first time during the appointment. He countered her equivocal, "It doesn't matter," response with, "It does matter. That was a private message. How did you know."

"John." She shifted in her seat. "This was clearly a high profile case. Surely you must have known that the police would investigate."

"So have they printed the transcript of it now in those papers you only sometimes read?" As the fresh loss sunk in, he suddenly just wanted to be back in his bed, where he should have stayed. He was still suffering from the vestiges of his pneumonia, and he was tired.

"Of course he didn't release it to the papers. Rich just thought it'd be helpful for your therapist to know, and passed it along to me."

John's blood ran cold. "Rich."

"Richard Brook. He wants to help you, John." Dr. George sat forward in her chair, earnest. "He just wants to help you through this."

With so many things he wanted to say, he was lost for a response. He stifled a gasp as he stood and nearly crumpled from the agony in his leg. "No," he said. "I have to go."

He left the room, the anger pounding in his head muffling her attempts to convince him to return. He took a cab back to Baker Street to avoid the whispers that had followed him that morning and tried to massage his leg without the cabbie noticing. It didn't work.

Being angry though, that helped. Rage fueled his climb back up the stairs, but once he reached the landing, he was shaky and his grip on the cane was slippery with sweat.

He was planning on taking a warm shower and fixing himself a cup of tea, maybe spiced with some of Mrs. Hudson's herbal soothers.

He was not planning on being greeted by the barrel of a gun.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: It makes me so pleased to see that people seem to be enjoying this story. Thank you all for your reviews and support!_

John obliged as the man with the gun gestured at him to come inside and shut the door slowly.

He wasn't anyone John recognized. With his shortly cropped brown hair and grim, determined eyes, he could be any number of the criminals in town who hadn't yet gotten the memo that John Watson was back to civilian life.

The man pointed him down the hall, saying, "Slowly now, slowly."

Leaning more heavily on his cane than he needed to, John led the way into the living room. In the mirror to his side, he watched as the intruder passed.

His strike with his cane was well-timed and landed squarely on his opponent's ribs with enough force to drive him back a step. The man was quick, though, and deflected John's punch, returning with a swing of his own that caught the doctor above the eye. By the time John had shook his sight clear, the gun was trained steadily on him once again.

"Doctor Watson, couldn't we have been polite about this?" The young man sighed.

"I don't know, coming in here without an invitation seems pretty rude to me," John said.

A shrug seemed to concede the fact. "Sit over by the table, won't you?" Handcuffs swung from his fingers.

John's arms were pulled uncomfortably but not painfully behind him as his wrists were handcuffed to the table leg. The tabletop pushed his head forward at an unnatural angle.

His captor straightened, surveying his work. "You got me good there, doctor." He winced as he rubbed his ribs.

"I try to," John said. "When people break into my house to kill me."

"The plan is not to kill you, Doctor Watson." The man regarded him seriously, then tilted his head. "That is, unless you want me to."

John's scoffing laugh turned into a hacking cough. He couldn't deny it. Only because he didn't have the space in his lungs, of course.

The man was roaming around the room now, ruffling through books and fingering papers aside. "I'm Slade, and I need your help finding something. A code. Jim Moriarty said he left it here with your flatmate."

John was already shaking his head. "No, no, we only realized what he must have done that day, Sherlock didn't have time to figure – " He stopped. There was something much more important. "You said, you believe in Jim Moriarty, then?"

"I never worked for the man, never met him, but it's clear this Richard Brook story makes no sense." Slade must have seen something in his captive's face, since he gestured to a chair, asking, "May I?"

At John's agreement, he settled into his seat. "Look, if there was a man hiring people to commit crimes, then turning around and arresting them, he'd run out of people that'd work with him right quick. Word like that gets around."

His throat constricted, John could at first only nod again. He managed, "You seem like a perceptive man."

"I try to be," Slade replied, "when I break into people's houses to find what they've hidden."

"I don't know where it is," John said.

Slade rose and went back to perusing the mantelpieces. "Most of the others figured that since Sherlock Holmes is dead, so is their chance to find the code. But I don't know that a man takes all his secrets to the grave."

The image of Sherlock's lonely coffin lowering into the earth returned unbidden. John tried to blink his eyes clear.

"I'm sorry. For your loss," Slade added. "I know what it's like to lose a friend."

"Then you know I'd help you if I could. If I found it, I'd pass it straight along to you and we could use it to bring down Richard Brook and expose Moriarty for the monster he is. And you could do whatever you liked with it after that."

The venom in his voice surprised John, but it made an impact on Slade, who sunk to his haunches, bringing the two men to eye level. "Is that a promise?" he asked, intense.

"Every word."

A minute passed silently as they took each other's measure. Then Slade reached into a pocket. "Don't hit me again, alright?" He pulled out a key and unlocked the handcuffs. With one hand, he helped John to his feet.

"I'm sorry I can't help you." John rubbed his wrists absently. "And for, you know, your ribs."

"They're just bruised," Slade waved him off. "Mind you, I thought you were supposed to be a doctor!"

"Army doctor," he conceded.

"Yes, that's right, you're a soldier."

John nodded curtly. "Try to be."

Slade smiled, and stuck out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Doctor Watson."

They shook. "It's John. And likewise. You have very nice manners for a crook."

"This line of work, it's important to be polite." The young man tucked his gun into the back of his pants. "And please, call me Charlie."

John raised his eyebrows. "What about Slade?"

"Bit of a stage name. Also important in this business." He placed a business card on the arm of John's chair. "Let me know if anything comes up."

"Absolutely." John answered, and then the flat was empty again.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Gosh, you guys said some very nice things! That's so awesome that two of you are reading this together, thanks for your reviews! I'm sorry it takes me a bit to upload, I'm falling behind in writing since I've got such a busy schedule consuming every waking minute. I wanted to get something up before the weekend as a 'Thank You' for the reviews and alerts though, so here._

Though John had spent almost an entire week shut up in the flat before that morning, he had kept his eyes averted. Staring at the ceiling, counting the threads of the blankets cocooning him. Now, he _looked_.

He was probably the only person who came away from a home invasion comforted. The only one anymore, of course. But the encounter with Slade had, undeniably, given him hope.

Rifling through the books stacked haphazardly throughout the living room, John's mind whirled, planning out how he could use the code to destroy the man who had taken everything away from him. An interesting twist that would be, if he, the pet, could take Moriarty's hubris and turn the man's greatest invention into the weapon of his downfall.

As his searching hands began to slow, John remembered that he wasn't the genius detective of 221B. He wouldn't even know what it looked like if he found it, probably. The world's only consulting criminal would not have hid the master key on a slip of paper under the sofa cushions. He checked anyway.

When he had made quite certain, twice, that the pillows weren't stuffed with secrets, John settled heavily onto the settee. The laptop he hadn't opened in days sat on the end table next to him. He had glanced under it at least four times, but now he lifted it for a different reason.

That therapist – if you could even call her that, had to be bloody awful to make even a thief with a gun more soothing in comparison – had talked about Jim Moriarty, or his alter ego, anyway, with the barely suppressed thrill of someone who had met a celebrity. Richard Brook didn't deserve any of that kind of regard, seeing as how he hadn't actually done much acting, not professionally. The only way he could suddenly have fans was if he had been doing a lot of public relations.

He was right. His computer was flooded with news stories about how "Richard Brook, rising star" was earnestly involved in charity work, children's enrichment programs, environmental clean-ups. The common thread in each piece, however, was that the benevolent actor was committed to atoning for the wrongs of his past, starting with healing scarred army veteran John Watson.

He had just finished listening to a chilling sound bite where Moriarty vowed to make him his "new project." Before he had a chance to shake off the frost that had settled deep in his stomach, he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

'Christ, two in one day?' was his first, paralyzed thought, then he silently rose and crouched down behind the large leather armchair. His cane was propped against the fireplace, just out of reach. As John felt the presence of another person enter the room, he knew he couldn't risk moving to try and arm himself with the walking stick.

The footsteps came into the center of the room, muffled on the carpet. They somehow felt familiar, but a cramp in his leg was distracting him from placing why.

Weight shifting, clothes rustling, and then a women's voice called out, "John?"

"Oh, Jesus," he swore. Grasping the back of the chair, he pulled himself up and faced his sister. "Pass me that, would you?"

"John. Are you alright?" Harry ignored his gesture at his cane, alarm in her tone as she studied him critically.

She stood with her arms crossed, purse dangling from one hand near cocked hips. Waifish as ever, her arms seemed as thin as the heels of the stilettos she wore. Thick makeup circling her eyes exaggerated the judging glare she was leveling at him.

"Goodness, why wouldn't I be?" he replied drily.

Her answer was a flat, "You're hiding behind a chair."

"Only recreationally," John said quickly. "Can you please pass me my cane?"

"And you're bleeding."

Harry's fingers danced around her temple, and John's own hand flew up to his face in response. It came back touched with blood from where Slade had hit him. He hadn't noticed it sluicing down his skin, congealing there. All he said was, "Right. Sorry."

"We need to talk about something important," Harry said, not taking worried eyes from her brother as she handed over his cane.

His stomach lurched. "It's not something wrong with Dad?"

She snorted. "I still don't get why you even care, but no. It certainly isn't as if I'd know before you, anyway." 

"I've just been a bit," John paused. What was the polite word for inconsolable grief so strong it made your lungs ache? "Out of it, for a few days." He wiped blood off on his trousers.

"I can see that," she said, eyeing the furniture. "That's mostly why I'm here."

"Mostly?"

Her eyes darted away from his face and back around the living room. Her voice pitched high, she asked, "Can't you wash that off?"

"Right, yes." Still stained, red painted the crevices of his fingerprints. Wrenching his gaze away, he moved past his sister to the kitchen. "Can I make you a cup of tea?"

Harry remained uncharacteristically silent, without a comeback, in the center of the room. Even though he knew it wasn't true, John told himself her reticence was just because she had never been to the flat before and was taking it all in. In fact, if she'd noticed the bullet holes decorating the walls, that wasn't actually such a farfetched explanation.

His temple stung as he scrubbed his face with a towel. He flung the crumpled fabric into the sink.

By the time he had finished placing the kettle on the stove to warm, Harry had swiveled in her spot to watch him. "You're limping again."

"Yes." Trying to hold his cane by his side with an elbow, John measured sugar into a teacup for his older sister.

"I thought you'd gotten over it already."

He had to remind himself that she was only talking about his leg before he snapped at her. Reigning in his chafed thoughts, he said simply, "It's back."

"It was never really there, though, was it." Her counter wasn't a question. "It's not real, you didn't get shot there, you know that."

"No, I know it's not, I know that." His teacup trembled and he couldn't raise it to his lips, so he continued under her penetrating glare. "It doesn't change the fact that it hurts. Every day, every time I move, every step forward, I –"

It seemed safer to put the cup down completely on the counter.

"And it doesn't matter," John continued. "What I know to be true, what other people think they know, it doesn't matter, because, what matters is that I can still feel it."

He gave his sister a barren smile. She looked repulsed.

"I don't understand you. You're a grown man, John. A soldier." Harry shook her head. "You've been through a war, through everything with dad, and this is what beats you? Even if he hadn't been lying to you the whole time –"

"Don't. Don't say that about him." John's jaw clenched as cold swept over him.

Harry stepped closer, purse swaying like a mace in her grip as he edged away. "I'll say what I like."

"You never even bothered to meet him, you can't say that."

"I can say what I like," Harry raised her voice, "when someone treats my little brother like he did, used you like he did. You're all broken up, and it's his fault."

"No." His voice shook with a strange sort of strength. "No, it's not his fault. He's not even here and you talk about him like –" Like his therapist, really. So many people, thinking they had Sherlock figured out, taking Moriarty at his word, though they'd never met either man. So much judgment.

"But you want to know what is his fault is that I was getting better," he said. "And I was happy, and doing important things, good things, helping people, and that was all due to him. And this," he banged his leg for emphasis, "this is _my_ weakness, and it is _my_ fault."

His fervor spent, he drooped, shoulders slumped. A ghost of a twitch in his fingers reminded him that another of his army scars was returning.

When he could look at her again, Harry's stance had softened from her argumentative pose into something he'd never seen his sister do before. She looked horrified. "You're sick, John. He destroyed you. You need help."

Distantly, he knew that laughter wasn't the right response to prove her wrong, but he couldn't stop. Not until she said, "I hope Brook makes good on his word." That stopped the distorted chuckles dead in his sore throat.

"An armed assassin was here today, just a few hours ago, actually. Stood where you're standing now, threatening me. Gave me this," John pointed at the gash above his eyes. "And he is more welcome in this house than you are."

He thought she would try and argue more, but she seemed to surprise them both by simply walking out. He though he should feel guilty that she would probably head straight for a pub to drink away his words. He thought that a dip into oblivion wouldn't be such a bad thing, permanent or not. He didn't know how to think about how much of his life was now spent listening to people leave.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted. I've been travelling every weekend shooting documentaries and haven't had much time to write. But here it finally is! I'm trying my darnedest to keep up with it, mostly because I get grouchy when I don't write enough, but it will probably stay slow. If you don't mind, I appreciate you sticking with me! I've enjoyed my return to fanfiction pretty well so far, so thank you to everyone who has put this on story alert and written reviews. It means a lot!_

The hallways of St. Bart's were narrower than he remembered. Technicians fumbled past, but John's head felt cloudy inside these walls and he couldn't really see them.

Mike had asked him to come in. He'd seen photos of John from the morning of the appointment, hunched over on the tube, eyes heavy with red. No one professional had known he'd be there since it had been the first time he'd left the flat, but plenty of people had grabbed quick shots on their phones. He couldn't' blame Mike for wanting to check up on him; the haggard lines of his face were captured from every angle.

The media had seized upon their first chance for speculation. He was the pity story at the ends of news broadcasts: "Misled army veteran John Watson finally emerges from the London flat he shared with detective and con artist Sherlock Holmes." He was the subject of panel discussions: "I think what you're saying is true, there is desolation here, but I'm not sure that it is all grief for a lost friend. I think that this is the posture of a man who has come to grips with a difficult truth, or maybe I'm just saying that because I hope so much that it's true. I want to see John Watson on the road to recovery, I think we all want that." He was almost never mentioned without the accompaniment of Moriarty.

The spidery man grinned and pouted on every channel, always offering up his view of 'poor John's situation.' "You've got to understand, he was taken advantage of at such a vulnerable point in his life. Poor soul, just back from the terrors of war, still a bit, well, you know." He'd wiggle around his leg in a little dance, making the young reporters titter. He'd smile slowly, soaking up their approval like a lizard drinking in the sun.

After the sleepy blinks of a sated appetite, he'd continue spinning his story. "Now, Sherlock Holmes was a truly depraved man, but he took so many people in with his lies, and none as strongly as John Watson. He was, unfortunately, just the prey in a twisted game."

Prey was too pointed a word; John knew he was just a pawn. The king's pet. But when the king was gone and you were bored…The scenario almost made him smile when the chessboard metaphor extended to include Mycroft as the queen.

Mike took John's change in expression as a reaction to a joke he'd made, though the truth was, John had forgotten he was there. "It really was good of you to come here, mate," Mike said, grinning. "We'll have to go for a coffee soon, but you know how it can be, working in a busy place like this."

John nodded, trying to avoid thinking about this place.

"I'm glad we're here today, though. You're better than I saw you last but your recovery isn't as complete as it ought to be."

His head snapped up. He was about to lash out – how soon was a person supposed to completely recover from the sight of their best friend pitching forward off a rooftop's edge? – but Mike added, "I'm going to get you something that should help you finally kick the last of that pneumonia."

"Oh, good. Thanks," said John. He didn't imagine he'd even bother to take it, but Mike didn't need to know that.

His portly friend was standing up, talking about taking a quick walk downstairs to the pharmacy when a slim nurse poked her head into the office. "Dr. Stamford, Mr. Shipton in Ward C needs you right away!"

Mike cursed mildly and dashed off a quick note. He crushed the paper into John's hands and said, "Get Molly to help you, won't you?" With a final swig from his styrofoam cup, he hurried off after the nurse.

Stuffy old Mike Stamford, whom their classmates had used to laugh good-naturedly at for being the most practical, predictable, boring student out of a very serious group of future doctors, was now running off to save lives. The comparison between them was startlingly harsh. Mike Stamford, who had gained some weight and an easy-going humor, was holding a man's life in his hands. John Watson, who had gained a limp and a tremor, held a crumpled prescription for cough syrup. He'd just had too many holes punctured through him; all of the important parts of him were gone. It made sense that the mortuary was his next destination.

His dark thoughts faded as he felt for the briefest of moments that it would be good to see Molly. The flare of warmth sputtered out almost immediately.

She'd seen what he had; she'd first spotted Sherlock's lofty silhouette. She'd be having a rough time of it, too. He knew he should be strong for her, for her more than anyone else, but he was having trouble even standing.

His nerves jangled, pulled back in time, bones grinding below his skin as his body screamed between the desperate need to rush forward and fix it and the gasping hope that somehow, if he stayed stone still, time would harden over. He had never in his life wished more fervently for anything than for the world to be preserved just as it was in that precise second. Somehow, he thought he could have survived if he and Sherlock were just separated by air, but to have earth forever dividing them was too much to bear. John's prayers that day had been enough to stick only himself in time, and the rest of the world moved on at a sickeningly fast pace.

Seeing Molly again was going to be difficult.

Difficult was the right term, he decided, both true and polite, a catchall phrase to explain away all the painful eccentricities that held him apart. Difficult was what he could call the stab of recognition in his chest as he saw that mop of dark hair dart around the corner. Difficult was an adequate description for his efforts to shove his leaping heart back down into place. Sherlock was gone, not traipsing around the corridors of St. Bart's. No matter how difficult that was, he had to accept it.

When he poked his head into the morgue, John watched Molly's face brighten for that first flash of recognition, then darken and pinch as she took in the craggy lines around his eyes.

"Hello," she said, hastily lifting the sheet back over the corpse's face and scooting around the table. "How are you? Well, I mean, is everything alright? Well, I know everything isn't alright, but are most things, besides, you know, alright?"

"Yes, it's okay," he said, saving the girl as her eyes grew horrified by the words snowballing out of her mouth.

They stood awkwardly in the weighty silence of unspoken truths. The normal thing to do would be to exchange more pleasantries, but John could feel that it wouldn't be pleasant for either of them. He extended the prescription and said, "Mike Stamford gave me this, but got busy. Asked if you could help me get it." Then, because it felt right and was true, he added, "It's good to see you," just as she said, "Of course, I'm happy to help."

The walk to the hospital's pharmacy stayed quiet between the two of them. Molly directed overenthusiastic hellos to every coworker passing by and John concentrated on keeping his gait steady. That familiar coat flew up a stairwell and John had to remind himself that it made sense he'd be seeing so much of Sherlock's ghost here, of course it did. It was still just a trick of the eyes.

The girl in the pharmacy was relieved to see them; she practically sprinted out of the room for a break, glad to leave Molly there to run things.

Molly led John back into the supply room, a place that hadn't changed all that much since he'd been a student. The cabinets were sleeker, and even if the pills did a few different things, they all still looked the same.

As Molly counted out the tablets Mike had prescribed, John cast an eye across the glossy labels pasted on the hundreds of bottles. His glance caught hold of a name he recognized, a strong painkiller and sleep aid. It was a drug the medical field had learned to keep away from depressed patients since overdosing on it was so peaceful and easy.

John's fingers closed around a bottle and stuffed it into his pocket.

As they walked back down to the morgue, John kept his hand fisted tightly around the stolen pills to prevent them rattling about. He was sure he didn't plan on using them, not that it'd be a bad thing if he did of course, just painkillers for his leg. No reason for it to be a secret, really. But he knew you had to take more than the prescribed two to handle an ache like this.

Molly smiled at him as she said goodbye, and John wondered how often Sherlock had received such a look, tinted with a sadness the girl didn't think would be seen. A protective surge ran through him, and he wanted to be strong for her. Even now, he was cleaning up Sherlock's social life. The man had been shit at goodbyes.

"I know he didn't show it much, but Sherlock did care for you," John blurted out. "In his way. You know how he is. But you meant something to him."

Her eyes were red and glistening, and her gaze felt pitying instead of comforted.

He stumbled to correct himself. "You know how he _was_."

"Oh John, I wish I could – " Molly stepped forward and laid a palm on his arm, but his hand clenched on the pill bottle in a heartbeat spasm and he pulled back.

"I should go." He turned away.

"He didn't mean for this to happen, I know he didn't," Molly told him. "He didn't think – "

"A common problem for Sherlock, not thinking." John flinched at the harsh sarcastic rasp of his own voice. "If he could just think things through a little bit more, not let his feelings get in the way of making the cleverest chess move."

He broke off with a cough. Molly tried to move closer, her eyes full.

"I've got to go, I'm sorry," he choked out. He didn't turn back as he rushed away, trying to swallow away the thick pain blocking his throat. He kept his eyes down so he wouldn't see Sherlock's ghost teasing him anymore.

With his gaze on his feet, John walked out of the front doors of St. Bart's and into the shined shoes of Jim Moriarty.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: I know I'm the worst sort of person, super slow updates and all that. Hopefully times will be easing up now that we are headed into summer semester, but who can tell. The point is that I didn't just quit! All the people that have story alerts reminded me that some people actually want to see where this goes and so I will keep on. Thanks for reading, guys!_

"John!" Jim took a moment to look surprised before he grasped John's hand and began to pump it vigorously up and down.

His name, "John Watson," rippled through the crowd in a murmur, and then a wave of light crashed over them as cameras clicked away, eager to commemorate the moment by capturing it forever on celluloid.

John's left hand clutched the bottle of pills stuffed in his jacket pocket. It was an anchor to reality when nothing else made any sense.

"Why are you here, Moriarty?" he demanded.

Jim's grin faltered at the sound of the surname. But instead of being replaced by rage as John had expected, the actor's face was steeped in pity.

"I'm just here to help with a new project in the children's wing," he said, facing the reporters, an arm reaching up to pat John's shoulder with photogenic familiarity. After a few second's pause for the flashbulbs, Jim turned to John once more. "But please, John, call me Rich."

John could almost see the teeming press surrounding the St. Bart's entrance swell and ebb in a collective sigh. The best ending to their story was coming true before their eyes, the unexpected kindling of a redemptive friendship.

"Don't need to call you anything." John tried to excuse himself, but the crowd pressed closer, and then Jim's fingers had ensnared his arm and yanked him back.

"Please, John." His wheedling voice felt intimate, as though their exchange wasn't being recorded for the nightly news broadcast. "Just give me a chance to apologize."

"For what, manipulating my friend into suicide or strapping me to a vest of explosives?"

Jim winced. "Yes, John, I'm so sorry about that. You couldn't have known that it was fake, but it was. All a trick, just a magic trick."

Which was he talking about? He couldn't tell. John was speechless, his heart thumping in a sore chest as Sherlock's last words were thrown back in his face by his killer.

"That's what Sherlock did, invented things, for his own purposes. Didn't he tell you that?"

Maybe he would have punched Jim right then, but movement in the back of the crowd caught John's eye. A mess of dark hair that stood just a bit taller than everybody else, weaving around as though trying to find the best vantage point to see without being seen. It was impossible, but John stared.

Jim took in John's far away look and hopeful eyes for a long moment, then his grip loosened and his tendril-like fingers slowly fell away. "I'm truly, terribly sorry for the part I played in it all."

His head turned to follow John's gaze. In a whisper, he asked, "Isn't there anything you'd like to tell me, John?"

John ripped his eyes away from the spectre. "What, angling for forgiveness, are we?"

"Maybe it's too soon for that," said Jim, crestfallen. "But maybe I'm just looking for a chance. I want to make up for my transgressions, get to know you better."

Jim's voice rose up in volume, and John remembered that the media was watching, primed and waiting. "I've heard you've stopped your therapy. Maybe we could go together, I know a great – "

"I haven't stopped anything." John shook his head vehemently, even though it was true. He wanted to ask where he was getting his information, but he knew the man wouldn't tell.

"Nevertheless, it'd be good for us both to work out some things, spend time together. Think about it." Then, his intense sincerity gone, Jim smiled widely and threw his arm out to the public. "Or maybe you can help with my initiative here at the children's wing. I may be The Storyteller, but there's still a hole in our program for a ventriloquist!

"What do you say, John?" Jim nudged him with an elbow. "How's your pronunciation? Gottle o' geer, gottle o' geer…"

Jim grinned at him with a wink and went on to wave at the cameras as John's blood ran cold. The places on his arm where Jim had touched him seemed to burn with ice, each one a reminder of how easy it would be for the criminal to hurt him again. His shaken hand, his patted shoulder, his nudged ribs, all a symbol of vulnerability.

He had to get out of there.

The press formed a tight shield around the steps, and he knew they wouldn't let him out even if Jim began to vivisect him right there. They'd just raise their cameras with bated breath and watch the dissection. But he could return inside and try to find another way.

John ducked back through the doors, moving as quickly as he could on his aching leg away from the shouted questions of the reporters. If he'd had the opportunity, he'd have chased down Sherlock's phantom and demanded to know why it was haunting him, but now, he needed to make sure the fist holding the pills in his pocket wasn't used for another, more tempting, purpose.

He bristled as he hobbled down a quiet hallway, off the normal path for visitors. Its emptiness made a space for his thoughts to expand. It was all too much, to be at this place where he had last seen his friend and then be suddenly suffocated by the nation's finest tabloids, all panting for a sound bite. This wasn't the way to say goodbye.

His hand tightened on the pill bottle.

Fingers wrapped around the taut muscles of his forearm. John's alarmed jerk away combined with the halt in momentum sent him stumbling.

"Please, John," Jim begged. His eyebrows puckered in concern. Try as he might, John could find no trace of sly mockery in his expression to undercut the apology in his words. "I mean it. I know that it all seems like a bit of a show out there in front of them, but honestly, I think a joint therapy session would be good for us."

"Why," yelled John, "Do you think that there is an us?"

Jim blinked and pulled away. He really did look hurt. John almost felt sorry for his outburst, but then remembered that he knew better.

Tentatively, picking his words carefully as thought they were tiptoeing through a minefield, Jim said, "I know, all too well, that no one can ever replace someone special after they've gone, nobody can fill up an important hole like that, but John, if you'd let me, I'd like for us to be friends." His eyes shone with truthful eagerness.

It didn't make any sense, the maniac John had met before was nothing like the man in front of him. His mind raked through possible explanations, but his mind would never fly like Sherlock's, and with the drugs in his pocket, John decided it didn't matter.

It was a surprisingly easy fix. His brain clicked into place, and, decision made, future planned, it was simple to just stick to the patterns he'd already become accustomed to. No time left for growth, so to stagnate was acceptable.

"Friends don't let friends explode," he told Jim.

"Or walk off rooftops," Jim shot back.

Lovely, confirmation.

John nodded shortly and continued down the hall.

"Wait, please, John, that's not what I meant," Jim called out behind him. "Really, John, please, I hope you'll reconsider the therapy. I've got it all set up, we can talk!"

John blocked out the words and focused on the sharp clarity of Jim's last comment, letting it fester within him and burn through his thoughts until there was nothing else.

'Friends protect people' was what he'd said. A tombstone proved Sherlock hadn't had any, and tonight, John counted himself lucky that he didn't either.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: So yes it's been ages but I promise, even though it will take me eons, I really do mean to finish this fic. All I can do is lavish appreciation on those of you that still stick around to read it, and keep writing it. It really means a lot to have people following the story so I can be reminded that some readers are actually interested in it. Thanks guys!_

At least ten pills lay heaped on his hand. John stared at the pile for a long time.

It was astounding how clear everything was now.

The press couldn't hound him, Moriarty couldn't touch him, the past couldn't pain him. Sherlock wouldn't be alone.

That was the best reason to do it. If it was only a way to escape his misery, he might feel that this course of action was too cowardly, but the image of his friend's lonely tombstone told him that what he did was alright.

He allowed himself to continue referring to Sherlock as his friend, even if he hadn't been much of one in return. It was too hard, impossible, to think of the detective of just that – a detective, a flatshare, a colleague, a genius – and nothing more.

It made him sick to think how dependent he had become on someone who couldn't possibly have felt so strongly in return, but the pills in his hands could cure that nausea so he let himself dwell in his thoughts a while longer.

It was liberating, in the way that it was healing to rebreak bones to set them properly, to free his mind from the tightrope sanity it'd been clinging to. He could wonder how Molly was feeling, and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft, Harry and his father. He could think about how they'd feel after, when all the tabloids would screech about the second suicide at 221B. And it didn't matter that he couldn't fix it, any of it, because he would finally have relief from the ever-present burden of a doctor to 'make it better.'

Resting in peace seemed like an easy enough thing to do.

His phone buzzed. Startled, his hand jerked and scattered chalky tablets across the floor. He didn't get up to check it, thinking instead of Sherlock's phone.

"That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?" Sherlock had said, so wry and bitter. Shouldn't he leave one then? Hadn't he always thought himself to be more 'people' than Sherlock? John thought wildly of Molly for a moment but discarded the idea. The newspeople would be the only ones to profit from something like that.

But there. If he had nothing left to do or say, then there was nothing stopping him.

He poured more pills into his cupped palm, remembering how terribly separated he had felt days ago, as if six feet of dirt was an impossible distance too far to travel. Now in his imaginings, Sherlock's tombstone had a companion and his grave no longer seemed so lonely.

Of course, he had only his imagination to tell him what Sherlock's grave looked like since he'd never gotten the chance to say his goodbyes.

If ever his time was his own, it was today. With no schedule to keep, John decided it was time to take one last detour.

Carefully, he returned the tablets to their bottle. Instinct told him to hide it, but no one would be in the flat to find it and draw conclusions and deliver roaring lectures about life and safety and responsibility.

He left the bottle standing on the table in the center of the flat. No one could intervene anymore.

* * *

><p>"Your services are no longer required," Jim said into his phone. "No, that is not a veiled threat. A threat sounds like me telling you I will turn you into shoes if you don't stop talking right now."<p>

The silence was satisfying. He hung up with a smirk. Amid all the salivatingly sweet press surrounding him these days, it was good to be reminded that he could still inspire bone-quivering fear. The look on John Watson's face outside St. Bart's, that had been lovely. He didn't have to be a genius – although, of course, he was – to see the man reliving the events of the night at the pool. None of the boring people in the crowd could see it though, the horror that he only barely managed to hold back.

Jim was actually a bit surprised at how strong his reaction had been. That night, Johnny had kept it clamped down, stiff upper lip, all that. His hands had been chained behind him when Jim finally got to him in one of the locker rooms. Even with the restraints, Jim's men gave him space; he'd apparently landed some good punches before they'd managed to subdue him with the tasers. Jim had no such compunctions. He'd specified that there be no visible marks, and he had to verify that his directions had been followed.

Circling around the trussed up doctor, Jim couldn't see anything, and really, it hardly mattered since the parka would be covering so much. It was the principle of the thing, though, quality control. He swooped his head in, nearly touching noses with his captive, who, to his credit, only jerked back with a sharp intake of breath, rather than sobbing in fear as most of the others had done.

"I don't know what he sees in you," Jim said coldly. "Of course, give it time, there won't be much left too see."

With the sing song back in his voice, Jim had straightened and turned away, so he couldn't see John's reaction. It was so simple to picture it though, all these people, so similar. The confusion, the outrage, the repulsion. Panic always won out in the end though. He could hear John's breathing become more heavy as the third stage set in and the criminal allowed himself a triumphant sneer.

But then the chuckles started.

"That's what this is about? Deluded fanboy, eh? Sherlock was right, the first thing he said about you."

Jim rounded on his, shouting, "Sherlock doesn't know anything about me!"

He'd been right, the shock on Sherlock's face later had been perfectly clear. At the time, though, he had grabbed the army doctor's shoulder and dug his fingers in, demanding, "What did he say? What does he know about me?"

John's face went white from the pain in his weak shoulder. Jim released him and wiped his hand off on the man's sandy hair.

"He doesn't know anything," he reaffirmed quietly. Raising his voice, he strolled from the room. "Gentlemen, help Dr. Watson into his costume for the evening, won't you?"

That night, as the hours stretched on and Jim crooned in the ear of his captive, he had reflected on what separated him from the man who the whole show was for. Though Sherlock Holmes might be able to paint a stranger's life in broad strokes, it was in specificity that one could spot the difference between a charlatan and a true psychic. Jim had done his research.

Sherlock could tell you that you'd been in a war, that you didn't get along with your family. Jim could tell you about that time in the field that explosions had shook the ground so much that your hand slipped and you'd sliced open the man you'd been trying to save, or about how your father had a mean streak when you were younger and even though the cigarette burns had faded, you still knew exactly where the scars were.

He'd explained to John his role in the evening's performance, and what would happen if he didn't play along. How it'd be just like what happened to his buddy Cartwright when that IED killed him, but actually better, since John was at the center of the explosion and would be completely and immediately torn apart, not left waiting while shrapnel ate through his face.

Crackling through to his side of the radio was only a furious silence, markedly stiller and stronger than the silence of fear that he was familiar with. But then Sherlock had come and things became much more interesting and Jim hadn't wasted any more time thinking about the boring pet. Now that he had broken his favorite toy, Jim was a tiny bit relieved that John Watson wasn't quite as boring as he looked.

The business with his Sherlock double floating around had been a dull letdown of course. He'd sent the man to follow the doctor whenever he left 221B and hadn't managed a single reaction. Jim wasn't sure what exact meaning he could pull from that – could this mean perhaps that John had good reason to cover up any reference to his flatmate or had he simply gone mad enough to disregard the occurrences as ghost sightings? Jim also wasn't sure which explanation would please him more. Either way, it had been time to call his man off and move on to his more active plan of attack.

Extraordinarily good timing, he congratulated himself, as, minutes later, he climbed into his chauffeured car. His men had informed him that John Watson had left his flat and it was clear that the game was now on.


End file.
